Eurozone still ‘vulnerable’ as recovery gathers pace: ECB

14/11/2017 06:04 AST

Some eurozone countries are still “vulnerable” to economic shocks even as a hard-won recovery from the financial crisis solidifies, European Central Bank vice-president Vitor Constancio cautioned on Monday.

“We are witnessing a sustained economy recovery in the euro area,” Constancio told a financial congress in Frankfurt.

But “these developments should not lead to complacency. Vulnerabilities and challenges remain in many euro area economies,” he added.

Despite swelling economic growth, “the number of young and long-term unemployed is still unacceptably high” in many of the single currency area’s 19 member countries, the former Portuguese central bank chief pointed out.

At the end of 2016, some 38.4 per cent of Greeks and 28.4 per cent of Italians aged 15-29 were unemployed, Eurostat figures show.

The countries that were struggling economically were far behind eurozone frontrunners like Germany or the Netherlands, where the rates of youth unemployment stood at 6.2 per cent and 8.6 per cent respectively.

Meanwhile, some states remain highly indebted even after painful reforms turned budget deficits into surpluses, and private debts are also at a high level.

And the crisis has “interrupted the process of real convergence” in economically weaker countries towards the income levels and living standards seen in the eurozone’s wealthiest nations, Constancio said.

With confidence shored up by strong economic performance, the ECB decided in October to slash by half the mass bond-buying it has used to buoy the eurozone.

From January, it will buy only 30 billion euros ($35 billion) of bonds per month instead of the present 60 billion.

Bond-buying, or “quantitative easing”, has been used by central banks around the world to pump cash through the financial system and into the real economy of businesses and households in the wake of the crisis.

But the ECB’s purchases have yet to bring inflation back to its target of just below 2.0 per cent, regarded as most favourable for economic growth.

The Gulf Today